Bicycling Georgia,
South Carolina and North Carolina
October, 2006

Atlanta to Winder GA

October 15, 2006
Distance 49.2 Miles
Elevation 2,900 feet

This was not a good day. First we arrived 24 hours late because of the snow storm in Buffalo, NY. As you can see there was lots of snow at the train station.

Our bicycle arrived in Atlanta 2-3 days earlier. When we arrived in Atlanta, we had to wait for an hour to get our bicycle because they gave all the other passengers their baggage before they even looked for our bicycle. When we unpacked the bicycle, my altimeter was dead. The battery died while in transit.

We finished putting the bicycle together, started for Winder at 11:00 and had gone less than 2 blocks when the chain broke. We continued on only the GPS would come to a corner and say make a U-turn as soon as possible.

At one intersection going up a hill the rear pannier fell off the bicycle into the middle of the street. Some very nice drivers saw this and honked at us and we were able to stop and pick it up without any other major tragedies.

The bicycle was not shifting very well and no matter what I adjusted, it continued to shift very badly. I finally determined that the bracket on the frame that holds the rear derailleur was bent. Sometime in the process of checking the shifting (we stopped at least 10 times) I left my brand new bike gloves behind. It took 1 ½ hours to go the first 7 miles.

Because the shifting was so bad, we exhausted ourselves going up hills during the first 15 miles. Not only was the rear derailleur not working but we could not get into the granny gear with the front derailleur. This made the hills really hard and slow and us really tired. We didn't even want to stop to eat because it would take too much time and we wanted to get to the hotel before dark.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group had a lovely day. George, Jane, Scott and Barb had sunshine and Mexican food and rode about 45 miles to Winder. They checked into the hotel about 45 minutes before Jim and Mary Kay arrived. Scott and Barb went out to check out the dinner options. There weren't many, so we ordered pizza to be delivered to the hotel.